Part 63

The Lady Adeline’s serene severity Was not confined to feeling for her friend, Whose fame she rather doubted with posterity, Unless her habits should begin to mend: But Juan also shared in her austerity, But mix’d with pity, pure as e’er was penn’d: His inexperience moved her gentle ruth, And (as her junior by six weeks) his youth.

These forty days’ advantage of her years— And hers were those which can face calculation, Boldly referring to the list of peers And noble births, nor dread the enumeration— Gave her a right to have maternal fears For a young gentleman’s fit education, Though she was far from that leap year, whose leap, In female dates, strikes Time all of a heap.

This may be fix’d at somewhere before thirty— Say seven-and-twenty; for I never knew The strictest in chronology and virtue Advance beyond, while they could pass for new. O Time! why dost not pause? Thy scythe, so dirty With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew. Reset it; shave more smoothly, also slower, If but to keep thy credit as a mower.

But Adeline was far from that ripe age, Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best: ’Twas rather her experience made her sage, For she had seen the world and stood its test, As I have said in—I forget what page; My Muse despises reference, as you have guess’d By this time;—but strike six from seven-and-twenty, And you will find her sum of years in plenty.

At sixteen she came out; presented, vaunted, She put all coronets into commotion: At seventeen, too, the world was still enchanted With the new Venus of their brilliant ocean: At eighteen, though below her feet still panted A hecatomb of suitors with devotion, She had consented to create again That Adam, call’d ‘The happiest of men.’

Since then she had sparkled through three glowing winters, Admired, adored; but also so correct, That she had puzzled all the acutest hinters, Without the apparel of being circumspect: They could not even glean the slightest splinters From off the marble, which had no defect. She had also snatch’d a moment since her marriage To bear a son and heir—and one miscarriage.

Fondly the wheeling fire-flies flew around her, Those little glitterers of the London night; But none of these possess’d a sting to wound her— She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb’s flight. Perhaps she wish’d an aspirant profounder; But whatsoe’er she wish’d, she acted right; And whether coldness, pride, or virtue dignify A woman, so she ’s good, what does it signify?

I hate a motive, like a lingering bottle Which with the landlord makes too long a stand, Leaving all-claretless the unmoisten’d throttle, Especially with politics on hand; I hate it, as I hate a drove of cattle, Who whirl the dust as simooms whirl the sand; I hate it, as I hate an argument, A laureate’s ode, or servile peer’s ‘content.’

’Tis sad to hack into the roots of things, They are so much intertwisted with the earth; So that the branch a goodly verdure flings, I reck not if an acorn gave it birth. To trace all actions to their secret springs Would make indeed some melancholy mirth; But this is not at present my concern, And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern.

With the kind view of saving an eclat, Both to the duchess and diplomatist, The Lady Adeline, as soon ’s she saw That Juan was unlikely to resist (For foreigners don’t know that a faux pas In England ranks quite on a different list From those of other lands unblest with juries, Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is);—

The Lady Adeline resolved to take Such measures as she thought might best impede The farther progress of this sad mistake. She thought with some simplicity indeed; But innocence is bold even at the stake, And simple in the world, and doth not need Nor use those palisades by dames erected, Whose virtue lies in never being detected.

It was not that she fear’d the very worst: His Grace was an enduring, married man, And was not likely all at once to burst Into a scene, and swell the clients’ clan Of Doctors’ Commons: but she dreaded first The magic of her Grace’s talisman, And next a quarrel (as he seem’d to fret) With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

Her Grace, too, pass’d for being an intrigante, And somewhat méchante in her amorous sphere; One of those pretty, precious plagues, which haunt A lover with caprices soft and dear, That like to make a quarrel, when they can’t Find one, each day of the delightful year; Bewitching, torturing, as they freeze or glow, And—what is worst of all—won’t let you go:

The sort of thing to turn a young man’s head, Or make a Werter of him in the end. No wonder then a purer soul should dread This sort of chaste liaison for a friend; It were much better to be wed or dead, Than wear a heart a woman loves to rend. ’Tis best to pause, and think, ere you rush on, If that a ‘bonne fortune’ be really ‘bonne.’

And first, in the o’erflowing of her heart, Which really knew or thought it knew no guile, She call’d her husband now and then apart, And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art To wean Don Juan from the siren’s wile; And answer’d, like a statesman or a prophet, In such guise that she could make nothing of it.

Firstly, he said, ‘he never interfered In any body’s business but the king’s:’ Next, that ‘he never judged from what appear’d, Without strong reason, of those sort of things:’ Thirdly, that ‘Juan had more brain than beard, And was not to be held in leading strings;’ And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice, ‘That good but rarely came from good advice.’

And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth— At least as far as bienséance allows: That time would temper Juan’s faults of youth; That young men rarely made monastic vows; That opposition only more attaches— But here a messenger brought in despatches:

And being of the council call’d ‘the Privy,’ Lord Henry walk’d into his cabinet, To furnish matter for some future Livy To tell how he reduced the nation’s debt; And if their full contents I do not give ye, It is because I do not know them yet; But I shall add them in a brief appendix, To come between mine epic and its index.

But ere he went, he added a slight hint, Another gentle common-place or two, Such as are coin’d in conversation’s mint, And pass, for want of better, though not new: Then broke his packet, to see what was in ’t, And having casually glanced it through, Retired; and, as went out, calmly kiss’d her, Less like a young wife than an aged sister.

He was a cold, good, honourable man, Proud of his birth, and proud of every thing; A goodly spirit for a state divan, A figure fit to walk before a king; Tall, stately, form’d to lead the courtly van On birthdays, glorious with a star and string; The very model of a chamberlain— And such I mean to make him when I reign.

But there was something wanting on the whole— I don’t know what, and therefore cannot tell— Which pretty women—the sweet souls!—call soul. Certes it was not body; he was well Proportion’d, as a poplar or a pole, A handsome man, that human miracle; And in each circumstance of love or war Had still preserved his perpendicular.

Still there was something wanting, as I’ve said— That undefinable ‘Je ne sçais quoi,’ Which, for what I know, may of yore have led To Homer’s Iliad, since it drew to Troy The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan’s bed; Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy Was much inferior to King Menelaus:— But thus it is some women will betray us.

There is an awkward thing which much perplexes, Unless like wise Tiresias we had proved By turns the difference of the several sexes; Neither can show quite how they would be loved. The sensual for a short time but connects us, The sentimental boasts to be unmoved; But both together form a kind of centaur, Upon whose back ’tis better not to venture.

A something all-sufficient for the heart Is that for which the sex are always seeking: But how to fill up that same vacant part? There lies the rub—and this they are but weak in. Frail mariners afloat without a chart, They run before the wind through high seas breaking; And when they have made the shore through every shock, ’Tis odd, or odds, it may turn out a rock.

There is a flower call’d ‘Love in Idleness,’ For which see Shakspeare’s everblooming garden;— I will not make his great description less, And beg his British godship’s humble pardon, If in my extremity of rhyme’s distress, I touch a single leaf where he is warden;— But though the flower is different, with the French Or Swiss Rousseau, cry ‘Voilà la Pervenche!’

Eureka! I have found it! What I mean To say is, not that love is idleness, But that in love such idleness has been An accessory, as I have cause to guess. Hard labour’s an indifferent go-between; Your men of business are not apt to express Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo, Convey’d Medea as her supercargo.

‘Beatus ille procul!’ from ‘negotiis,’ Saith Horace; the great little poet ’s wrong; His other maxim, ‘Noscitur a sociis,’ Is much more to the purpose of his song; Though even that were sometimes too ferocious, Unless good company be kept too long; But, in his teeth, whate’er their state or station, Thrice happy they who have an occupation!

Adam exchanged his Paradise for ploughing, Eve made up millinery with fig leaves— The earliest knowledge from the tree so knowing, As far as I know, that the church receives: And since that time it need not cost much showing, That many of the ills o’er which man grieves, And still more women, spring from not employing Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.